In good taste

By Andy Coghlan

TASTE buds on rats’ tongues have shown how we sense monosodium glutamate, a
fundamental taste component together with bitter, sweet, salty and sour.
Researchers say that the new result highlights how evolution has fine-tuned our
mouths to be sensitive to the nutritional content of food.

Monosodium glutamate is a meaty flavouring often added to Chinese and far
eastern cuisine. Better known as umami, a Japanese word meaning
“delicious savoury taste”, the monosodium glutamate taste applies equally to
glutamate alone, a raw amino acid found in meat. Despite its oriental
connections, umami is widespread in the Western diet, in foods such as
a ham-topped pizza, for example.

Nirupa Chaudhari and her colleagues at the University of Miami School of
Medicine in Miami, Florida, had a hunch that our taste buds have docking
points—or receptors—for glutamate similar to those found in the
brain. Researchers already know there are dozens of

To continue reading this premium article, subscribe for unlimited access.